Ujaama will testify in New York about al-Qaida links Seattle Times ^ | June 1, 2003 | Mike Carter

Posted on 06/01/2003 12:24:12 AM PDT by sarcasm

Ujaama will testify in New York about al-Qaida links Seattle Times ^ | June 1, 2003 | Mike Carter

Posted on 06/01/2003 12:24:12 AM PDT by sarcasm

Federal inmate James Ujaama, the former Seattle man who pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban, has been moved to New York to testify before a grand jury investigating a militant London cleric believed to be a top al-Qaida recruiter.

Ujaama, 37, is the key witness in a criminal case federal prosecutors are building against Abu Hamza al-Masri, a former imam at the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, said federal law-enforcement sources who agreed to speak only if they were not identified.

A federal grand jury in Manhattan is investigating Abu Hamza's alleged efforts to help Ujaama and others set up a terrorist-training camp on a small ranch in Bly, Ore., in 1999, two Department of Justice sources have confirmed.

Abu Hamza recently has been the focus of a political firestorm in Great Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair and Home Secretary David Blunkett have announced plans to deport the cleric. Authorities have pulled his license to preach inside the three-story mosque, although he continues to advocate violence against the West in soapbox sermons just outside.

Abu Hamza has been designated a terrorist by the U.S. State Department and is wanted in Yemen for his alleged role in the 1998 kidnappings of 16 Western tourists by the Islamic Army of Aden. Four of the hostages died during a shootout.

Ujaama became friends with Abu Hamza after moving to London in the mid-1990s. There Ujaama designed and ran the cleric's Web site, Supporters of Shariah, which supported holy war against Israel and the United States.

Ujaama, a graduate of Ingraham High School and a local entrepreneur formerly known as James Earnest Thompson, was also one of several Seattle-area militant Muslims affiliated with the now-defunct Dar-us-Salam Mosque in the Central Area.

Last year, as a result of his 1999 activities in Bly, Ujaama was charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and kill U.S. citizens abroad. He faced up to 25 years in prison.

In exchange for his cooperation, Ujaama will serve two years of a possible 10-year sentence for providing computers, money and fighters to the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which sheltered al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden for years.

U.S. troops toppled the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

As part of his plea agreement, Ujaama promised to help the FBI and other intelligence agencies in investigations of Abu Hamza and others.

Since April, FBI agents and federal prosecutors have debriefed him at length. Ujaama's statements "have confirmed that he is everything we thought him to be, and more," one Department of Justice source said.

Robert Mahler, one of Ujaama's lawyers, declined to comment.

Documents recently unsealed by a federal judge in Seattle reveal new details about the activities and investigations of Ujaama and Abu Hamza.

The documents show that the FBI had an informant within the Seattle militant group who was aware that Ujaama had sent a fax from a Kinko's Copy Center in Washington to Abu Hamza in London.

"The facsimile proposed the establishment of a Jihad training camp in the state of Oregon," a document says.

According to court documents and government sources, that fax prompted Abu Hamza to send two of his lieutenants  Oussama Kassir and Haroon Rashid Aswat  from London to Bly, Ore., via New York City. That transit point has allowed the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan to take jurisdiction over the investigation.

"According to an individual who was present, Ujaama personally drove (Kassir and Aswat) to the Bly, Ore., training camp" in November 1999, the documents say."

Excerpted

57
posted on 07/20/2005 9:46:37 PM PDT
by Grampa Dave
(The MSM is trying to make us believe, Judith Miller is in jail to protect Karl Rove!)

BLY, Ore.  This hard-knocks hamlet seems an unlikely place to search for clues to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

It sits on an arid plateau in Southern Oregon, about 50 miles east of Klamath Falls. With a population of about 250, it has a couple of cafes and small stores, an antique shop, and the razed foundation of an abandoned lumber mill.

But in late 1999, federal authorities and other sources say, the area had something far more unusual: militant Muslims scouting a ranch outside of town as a possible training camp for jihad fighters.

That aborted effort has now thrust Bly into the thick of a Seattle-based FBI and federal grand-jury investigation into al-Qaida's activities in the United States. Authorities suspect that a group of Seattle-based Muslims, mostly U.S. citizens, were operating as a "cell" in support of al-Qaida, and that opening a terrorist-training camp was part of their plans.

For about six months beginning in September 1999, Semi Osman  a cleric at a small Seattle mosque named Dar-us-Salaam  lived on the ranch, a few miles outside town. Osman is now in federal custody in Seattle, charged with immigration and weapons violations and under investigation for terror-related activities.

Sources say Osman's visitors on the Bly ranch included two members of a London mosque led by Sheik Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical cleric believed to be an al-Qaida recruiter, and militant members of Osman's Central Area mosque. Some of the visitors rode horses and fired automatic weapons, according to people in the area.

Police began to watch the ranch closely, said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

THE SEATTLE TIMES

"There were reports of gunfire and of a large group of suspicious, or unusual, people there," Evinger said.

Gunfire is common in rural Southern Oregon, where many residents carry arms and engage in target practice or hunting.

But this information concerned the sheriff enough that he turned it over to the FBI. He heard nothing again until after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the information gained new importance. His detectives were briefed about the federal investigation late last year, Evinger said.

"I think even before then, we had our suspicions about what this might be," he said. "You expect terrorist activity in the big cities. I think people need to realize this sort of stuff can happen anywhere."

Neighbors say Osman, now 32, kept a low profile, tooling around in a beat-up 1984 Toyota sedan and at one point commuting to Klamath Falls to work as a mechanic, according to neighbors and a former employer.

Still, he and his family got plenty of notice. In this community of bluejeans and boots, the balding, bearded Osman dressed in a tunic and skullcap. His wife, an American who converted to Islam, dressed in a long robe and headscarf in traditional Islamic fashion. A young daughter attended the local school.

Some Bly residents who knew Osman say that he was friendly and polite, and often spoke of his hopes to join the U.S. Army after he left the ranch. Osman, a naturalized British citizen with permanent U.S. residency status, was a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve.

But at least one neighbor, retired carpet layer Perry Thompson, clashed with Osman.

Thompson said Osman was a high-strung man who didn't like unexpected visitors. On two occasions, Thompson said, an armed Osman confronted him. In one of the incidents, Thompson said, Osman forced him to stop his truck by driving up from behind and parking in front of him, then he jumped out of his car, ran to his window and pointed a semiautomatic handgun at his head.

"He had all kinds of guns," Thompson said. "And he was belligerent."

HAL BERNTON / THE SEATTLE TIMES Later residents of the Bly ranch have found spent and live ammunition from semiautomatic weapons.

A Bly tow-truck driver, Billie Livingston, also reports an unsettling visit to the ranch. Coming to jump-start a dead battery, she was surprised to find a half-dozen men, some of whom appeared foreign-born, intently watching her.

Among the men at the ranch in December 1999 were two men who federal investigators believe were sent by al-Qaida leaders to check out the ranch as a potential training camp.

The men's presence in Southern Oregon was documented in a speeding ticket issued that December in Klamath Falls. According to a source, the police officer became suspicious of the occupants of the car and checked their identification.

Later, federal agents would determine the men had arrived from Great Britain two weeks earlier.

"Those men," the source said, "were there for a bad purpose."

The two men were followers of Abu Hamza, leader of the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, the heart of militant Islam in Europe.

Abu Hamza applauded the Sept. 11 attacks. His mosque had been attended by Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and by Richard Reid, the man accused of trying to blow up an American Airlines jetliner with explosives in his shoes.

Osman's attorney, Robert Leen, denies his client has any involvement with terrorism. Others who know Osman say that he was uncomfortable with the militancy of his visitors and that he sought to distance himself from them.

The Bly ranch had been owned by Esther Fisher Schneider, who died in August 1999 at age 82. She had moved from Washington state to Bly in the 1990s with a sheep rancher named Ivan Rule, known among Bly residents for espousing extreme right-wing political views.

The property is now listed as owned by the late Schneider and the Barraka Communal Corp., a nonprofit corporation created by Rule and an American Muslim woman who lived with him in 1999.

In February 2000, Osman and his family left the ranch. The daughter and son-in-law of neighbor Perry Thompson, Lona and Paul Azevedo, moved in. In walks on the property, the Azevedos have collected ammunition from semiautomatic and other weapons.

Rule, who no longer lives in Bly, was not available for comment. The IRS has a tax lien against him in Fremont County, Colo., in the amount of $10,041, dating from May 1994.

Lona Azevedo says she continues to pay rent to Rule through a Bly post office box, but she is not sure where he lives.

Meanwhile, yesterday in London, Abu Hamza denied any knowledge of a plot to set up a terrorist camp in Bly, or of a cell of al-Qaida supporters in Seattle.

"We have quite a good following in America, but we don't keep a structure because we are talking about principles," he told NBC.

"I have friends everywhere," he said. "When you are arresting people in America under suspicion, you might as well arrest the rest of the planet."

62
posted on 07/20/2005 10:00:02 PM PDT
by Grampa Dave
(The MSM is trying to make us believe, Judith Miller is in jail to protect Karl Rove!)

A Bly tow-truck driver, Billie Livingston, also reports an unsettling visit to the ranch. Coming to jump-start a dead battery, she was surprised to find a half-dozen men, some of whom appeared foreign-born, intently watching her.

Among the men at the ranch in December 1999 were two men who federal investigators believe were sent by al-Qaida leaders to check out the ranch as a potential training camp.

Lets see who was President in 1999. Oh yeah, it's Bush's fault.

70
posted on 07/20/2005 10:18:59 PM PDT
by Grampa Dave
(The MSM is trying to make us believe, Judith Miller is in jail to protect Karl Rove!)

Well, when are we going to hold these people responsible for sticking up for terrorist who are in the US ? The Muslims have infiltrated all aspects of American life already .The NY area is SWARMING with them . Am I the only one alive who sees how dangerous this is .No one else see's the plan here but me ? Liberals be damned , they will cause the death of us all soon enough .We need to CLOSE the US until further notice and THEN find out who the hell is living here ..May be too late already

They, the killers, are waiting for huge Natural National Crisis (earthquake,hurricane,stock market crash) then, when we are at our weakest, then they will strike. Our politically castrated police forces won't have the ability to combat them.

HELL, look at the DC snipers! These animals were trained to kill for Allah. How many people where killed by 2 converts to islam. How was the nation effected? See.. OLD NEWS IS RELEVANT.

They are waiting. I am waiting too. I'm locked and loaded Mohammad. Bring it on.

85
posted on 07/20/2005 10:58:05 PM PDT
by Splatter
(A foolish man is able to learn, has the opportunity, and does not do it..)

Yeah, the FIRST thing blubberbutt Vera Katz did as soon as she got her puss in the media in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was to bleat nasally about how "we don't want any minorities to be hurt as a result of this" (I am NOT kidding; I HEARD it).

Like, forget the 3000 incinerated Americans, forget the war that just started, forget trying to safeguard the City of Portland, what we really need to do is wail piously about not "Hurting" "Minorities".

Subsequently, it was of course revealed that Katz was employing Islamikazi terrorists in her mayoral orifice oops excuse me office.

91
posted on 07/20/2005 11:07:41 PM PDT
by fire_eye
(Socialism is the opiate of academia.)

Oh, Vera she was a classic. Now they have another leftist Mayor. Rats breed rats.

Portland, much like Seattle has been under DEM-MOB control for many years. It is no wonder terrorists grow roots in the West. They are willing to do anything for the ideology and power, just like leftists.

93
posted on 07/20/2005 11:28:43 PM PDT
by Splatter
(A foolish man is able to learn, has the opportunity, and does not do it..)

I don't have the time to research this at the moment, but there was a mention of the name 'Bilal' involved with the London bombings. IIRC, 'Bilal' was also a surname and/or possibly the name of a mosque associated with those arrested for shooting guns at a rock quarry in Oregon shortly after 9/11. So much has transpired between now and then that the details are foggy in my mind, but 'Bilal' was an "aha!" moment for me.

In 1984, followers of Bhagwan Shri Rashneesh sprinkled homegrown salmonella bacteria on supermarket produce, door handles, and restaurant salad bars in Oregon. Nobody died, but 751 people became ill. The poisonings were preparation for attacks meant to keep voters home during a local election in which a cult member was running for a county judgeship. Prosecution of cult leaders led to the dispersement of the organization.

Brandon Mayfield was indeed mistakenly fingered (pun intended), he has a legitimate beef with the F.B.I. The feds apologized, but of course that is not enough for this loony attorney. He is on a personal crusade to make sure we stop profiling mooselimbs.

100
posted on 07/21/2005 1:31:52 AM PDT
by LayoutGuru2
(Know the difference between honoring diversity and honoring perversity? No? You must be a liberal!)

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